RDT&E

I am working on a 8a contract and the Program office wants to appy RDT&E funding to this contract because the entire program is in the the development stage. The Contractor shall provide all necessary professional acquisition services (from pre-award to post-award) required to support the program office in awarding a contract to get this development program up and running. My question is since this contractor is not doing any RDT&E functions does this qualify for RDT&E Funding?

I am working on a 8a contract and the Program office wants to appy RDT&E funding to this contract because the entire program is in the the development stage. The Contractor shall provide all necessary professional acquisition services (from pre-award to post-award) required to support the program office in awarding a contract to get this development program up and running. My question is since this contractor is not doing any RDT&E functions does this qualify for RDT&E Funding?

Crazy KO, is it really that obvious that you don't want to provide anything to support your conclusion? Within DoD, "Costs of laboratory personnel, either in-house or contractor operated, would be assigned to appropriate projects or as a line item in the Basic Research, Applied Research, or ATD program areas, as appropriate." DoDFMR, Vol. 2B, par. 050201.G.S ee also, the model Exhibit R-3 for RDT&E Projects, at page 5-18 of Vol. 2B, which states, "Typical Cost Categories [for Management] are: Contractor Engineering Support, Government Engineering Support, Program Management Support, Program Management Personnel, Travel, Labor (Research Personnel), and Overhead."

Crazy KO, is it really that obvious that you don't want to provide anything to support your conclusion? Within DoD, "Costs of laboratory personnel, either in-house or contractor operated, would be assigned to appropriate projects or as a line item in the Basic Research, Applied Research, or ATD program areas, as appropriate." DoDFMR, Vol. 2B, par. 050201.G.S ee also, the model Exhibit R-3 for RDT&E Projects, at page 5-18 of Vol. 2B, which states, "Typical Cost Categories [for Management] are: Contractor Engineering Support, Government Engineering Support, Program Management Support, Program Management Personnel, Travel, Labor (Research Personnel), and Overhead."

Perhaps my methodology would lead the requestor to do some research on his/her own. In that respect he/she may learn even more than what you have lended.

I am working on a 8a contract and the Program office wants to appy RDT&E funding to this contract because the entire program is in the the development stage. The Contractor shall provide all necessary professional acquisition services (from pre-award to post-award) required to support the program office in awarding a contract to get this development program up and running. My question is since this contractor is not doing any RDT&E functions does this qualify for RDT&E Funding?

You have not told us what agency you are with or what type of funds are used to fund the operations of your activity. Also, you have not mentioned what the act appropriating the funds says about use of RDT&E funds. The answer to your question depends on several factors and is not simple.

You have not told us what agency you are with or what type of funds are used to fund the operations of your activity. Also, you have not mentioned what the act appropriating the funds says about use of RDT&E funds. The answer to your question depends on several factors and is not simple.

I work for the DOD (Army). I gave the lawyer a copy of this excert: (G. Budget Activity 6, RDT&E Management Support. This budget activity includes research, development, test and evaluation efforts and funds to sustain and/or modernize the installations or operations required for general research, development, test and evaluation. Test ranges, military construction, maintenance support of laboratories, operation and maintenance of test aircraft and ships, and studies and analyses in support of the RDT&E program are funded in this budget activity. Costs of laboratory personnel, either in-house or contractor operated, would be assigned to appropriate projects or as a line item in the Basic Research, Applied Research, or ATD program areas, as appropriate. Military construction costs directly related to major development programs are included)

and he says its OMA, but me and the KO interpet this as stating any effort that supports an RDT&E program qualifies for RDT&E funding. Even though this contract is for pre award/post awrd support for this RDT&E program. If anyone knows any examples or any place else I can look for answers to support my theory it would be greatly appreciated.

You have not told us what agency you are with or what type of funds are used to fund the operations of your activity. Also, you have not mentioned what the act appropriating the funds says about use of RDT&E funds. The answer to your question depends on several factors and is not simple.

I work for the DOD (Army). I gave the lawyer a copy of this excert: (G. Budget Activity 6, RDT&E Management Support. This budget activity includes research, development, test and evaluation efforts and funds to sustain and/or modernize the installations or operations required for general research, development, test and evaluation. Test ranges, military construction, maintenance support of laboratories, operation and maintenance of test aircraft and ships, and studies and analyses in support of the RDT&E program are funded in this budget activity. Costs of laboratory personnel, either in-house or contractor operated, would be assigned to appropriate projects or as a line item in the Basic Research, Applied Research, or ATD program areas, as appropriate. Military construction costs directly related to major development programs are included)

and he says its OMA, but me and the KO interpet this as stating any effort that supports an RDT&E program qualifies for RDT&E funding. Even though this contract is for pre award/post awrd support for this RDT&E program. If anyone knows any examples or any place else I can look for answers to support my theory it would be greatly appreciated.

I work for the DOD (Army). I gave the lawyer a copy of this excert: (G. Budget Activity 6, RDT&E Management Support. This budget activity includes research, development, test and evaluation efforts and funds to sustain and/or modernize the installations or operations required for general research, development, test and evaluation. Test ranges, military construction, maintenance support of laboratories, operation and maintenance of test aircraft and ships, and studies and analyses in support of the RDT&E program are funded in this budget activity. Costs of laboratory personnel, either in-house or contractor operated, would be assigned to appropriate projects or as a line item in the Basic Research, Applied Research, or ATD program areas, as appropriate. Military construction costs directly related to major development programs are included)

and he says its OMA, but me and the KO interpet this as stating any effort that supports an RDT&E program qualifies for RDT&E funding. Even though this contract is for pre award/post awrd support for this RDT&E program. If anyone knows any examples or any place else I can look for answers to support my theory it would be greatly appreciated.

I worked on the US Army Chemical Weapons Demilitarization Program for 10 years. Our construction included both RDT&E and MILCON. I think that the Corps of Engineers used O&M funding for supervision and administration of the RDTE portion of construction. You could contact the US Army Corps of Engineers at the Huntsville Engineering and Support Center and ask them or you could ask them for the current Program Manager's office point of contact at U.S. Army Element, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program (ACWA). The Program Manager may be using some other funds for their internal personnel or for efforts during the post construction period. Look up the USACE office or U.S. Army Element, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program (ACWA) via GOOGLE or look it up in Wikipedia.

I work for the DOD (Army). I gave the lawyer a copy of this excert: (G. Budget Activity 6, RDT&E Management Support. This budget activity includes research, development, test and evaluation efforts and funds to sustain and/or modernize the installations or operations required for general research, development, test and evaluation. Test ranges, military construction, maintenance support of laboratories, operation and maintenance of test aircraft and ships, and studies and analyses in support of the RDT&E program are funded in this budget activity. Costs of laboratory personnel, either in-house or contractor operated, would be assigned to appropriate projects or as a line item in the Basic Research, Applied Research, or ATD program areas, as appropriate. Military construction costs directly related to major development programs are included) and he says its OMA, but me and the KO interpet this as stating any effort that supports an RDT&E program qualifies for RDT&E funding. Even though this contract is for pre award/post awrd support for this RDT&E program. If anyone knows any examples or any place else I can look for answers to support my theory it would be greatly appreciated.

You want someone to tell you something or refer you to something that will help you and your CO prove that the lawyer is wrong. Forget about it. The answers to your kind of question often turn on agency or even local office policy. Someone suggested that you ask someone in your comptroller's shop, and that sounds like a good idea to me. None of us here and no one at the Corps of Engineers (unless you work for the Corps) knows enough about your situation to be of real help to you. We can only speak in generalities. You are on your own. The very fact that you came here for advice tells me that you are going to lose to the lawyer.

If you want to become educated about the general governing the use of funds, see Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, Vol. I, 3d ed., Chapter 4. Pay special attention to the section devoted to the "Necessary Expense" doctrine.

You want someone to tell you something or refer you to something that will help you and your CO prove that the lawyer is wrong. Forget about it. The answers to your kind of question often turn on agency or even local office policy. Someone suggested that you ask someone in your comptroller's shop, and that sounds like a good idea to me. None of us here and no one at the Corps of Engineers (unless you work for the Corps) knows enough about your situation to be of real help to you. We can only speak in generalities. You are on your own. The very fact that you came here for advice tells me that you are going to lose to the lawyer.

If you want to become educated about the general governing the use of funds, see Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, Vol. I, 3d ed., Chapter 4. Pay special attention to the section devoted to the "Necessary Expense" doctrine.

I agree that we can only speak in generalities. The funds I am referring to are from another Army command, not USACE. They might be DoD funds - I don't remember because some of the Chem-Demil sites fell under DoD funding stream while other sites were DA funded. And both commands had to use some type of funding for their participation in the program. I agree that the Comptroller or Finance and Accounting people should know what the questioner's funds may be used for.

Do you know the appropriation data for the funds? If so, you can look up what type of funds they are in the FASTBook.

Don, maybe you can clear something up regarding the FASTBook. Looking specifically at DoD and taking O&M as an example, we see that there are two entries; 097X0100 and 097 0100. As I understand it, in a DoD fundsite, the first two digits represent the component. In this case, 97 being DoD. The third digit is the last number in the year of the appropriation, i.e., for FY 11 funds, a 1 would appear. X is the symbol for no-year appropriaitons. I have seen several fund sites on contracts for 97X0100. However, I have found nothing in a DoD appropriation act stating that O&M funds remain available until expended. Can you clarify this mystery for us?

I don't know off the top of my head. Were the fund cites using the "X" working capital funds?

To the best of my knowledge they were not working capital funds as the buying office was not located in a working capital funded activity. Let me try my question again in a different way. The FASTbook has two entries for DoD wide O&M funds. One is 097X0100 and the other is 097 0100. The description in the FASTbook for each is the same. I have not been able to find anything n the FASTbook that explains the difference. Maybe I am l,ooking in the wrong places, but since you have referenced the FASTbook more than once, I thought you might be more familiar with it and how to use it than I am.

You're correct that the "X" denotes no-year funds. I just looked at the FY2011 Appropriations Act and found several instances of O&M, Defense-Wide, funds being available until expended. For example,

SEC. 8110. In addition to amounts provided elsewhere in this Act, there is appropriated $300,000,000, for an additional amount for ??Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide??, to remain available until expended. Such funds may be available for the Office of Economic Adjustment, notwithstanding any other provision of law, for transportation infrastructure improvements associated with medical facilities related to recommendations of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.

Do you know the appropriation data for the funds? If so, you can look up what type of funds they are in the FASTBook.

Here is what i am getting from the program office on why they are using RDT&E funding:

"Dan - as requested, below are a few points WRT why this contract is not OMAfunded.

Bottom line: The required acquisition support services are needed to help usacquire new systems. These are new programs, i.e., new capabilities.so howcan the acquisition of an SI to develop these new capabilities be OMAfunded? Regardless of the types of services we're requesting, there's no waythis is an OMA bill.

The scope of the required acquisition support services we need to put oncontract are for P2P, SA, and Labor Tracking, which are all pre Milestone Binitiatives, which means they are not deployed, which means they are to beRDTE funded. We cannot use OMA funding prior to deployment.

Furthermore, we don't have OMA funding for these project (for the previouslystated reasons)."

Here is an insert I got from the Appropriation Usage for Information Technology:

c. Expense/Investment Threshold: As a general rule, the O&M appropriation is used for expense items (sustainment ? repair and maintenance; and items or systems under the threshold of $250K) to include infrastructure. OPA appropriation is used for investment items/systems that exceed the $250K threshold. RDT&E appropriation is used for both expenses and investment items that involve research and development (R&D) type activities (no threshold).

This seems to me that they are authorized to use RDT&E funding. Let me know what you think. Thanks for your help.

How does "all necessary professional acquisition services (from pre-award to post-award) required to support the program office in awarding a contract to get this development program up and running" fit into the description of Budget Activity 6? What services, from the Budget Activity description, will the contractor be performing?

I learned long ago that even if the FAR says I can do it, or the GAO Redbook says I can do it, and someone here at Wifcon says I can do it, if my own agency's funds certifying official won't certify the funds for my use, then I can't do it. As a contracting officer, I now let my program managers fight those battles -- that's part of what program managers are for.